Noah Snyder

Easy: Aprrox 20 questions a week (10 on webassign, 10 written), 2 midterms (he pretty much emails everyone what is expected to be on it), and a final (emails everyone what is expected to be on it) which was definitely not that hard if you study the midterms and review properly.

Professor Snyder is an amazing person; he is extremely nice, especially during office hours, and really does try to help you once he knows who you are. This class is a breeze for anyone with previous experience with calculus, and the tests were pretty straight forward. Honestly, no one should really complain about this class because he is VERY FAIR with grading and tests. I mean, come on, he drops the two lowest homeworks (one on webassign and one that is written) and pretty much e-mails everyone in the class the basic outline of the midterms and the final AND during lecture he actually gives hints as to what he will put on the test. His lectures I didn't find them the most useful BUT they definitely weren't boring only because he stops often and makes little jokes to liven the class. The curves aren't too great, but it all depends on the class. The class average was generally high, which is why there wasn't a high curve. I came out of that class with an A and I had calculus AB two years ago, so I found him to be generally good. I would 100% recommend him for calculus. OH and possibly one of the greatest things is that he is one of the very few calc teachers at Columbia that doesnt have an accent, so even if you disagree with this entire review of him, you can't really complain about his accent.

RUN! RUN! RUN! if you don't have a background or haven't taken AP calculus in high school DON"T waste your time with this guy! He goes over problems a few times giving lame excuses that he didn't "learned yet how to teach them".... Yes. that what he said in class. Find his own mistakes the next day and corrects them half class time... Absolute waste time.You won't learn anything in particular. Exams are fair.Grading awful.

Not bad at all. A few questions from the textbook and 4-16 questions on webassign due every week. 2 midterms 1 final.

If you come into this class with prior knowledge of Calculus from Calc AB or Calc BC in high school, then the class will be fairly easy. He goes through lots of examples in class, so as long as you write them down and review them some time after class you will be fine when the exams come. The midterms and finals are not that hard because he reviews the material that he is going to put on the test in the last day of class before the day of the test. Something that I found slightly annoying on the tests were the conceptual questions. For instance, proving how (x^a)^b is equal to x^(ab). However, you can use simple logic to think these questions through. All in all, I would definitely recommend this class to anyone looking to take Calc 1.

Not bad. Homework takes about 2-3 hours each week (depending on your familiarity with the material).

Not good. He spends all of class going over proofs and theory, and only did a few real examples all semester. Even so, you should go to class because he will tell you certain things that will be on the exams. Even if he only tells you one or two things, it is extremely helpful because midterms are 8 questions and the final has 16. I took calc in high school, so I thought I didn't need to study...then I took the first midterm and got a 50%. After that, I prepared for the other midterm and the final by reading the instructional part of each section and doing all the odd review problems for each chapter. I ended up getting a B, which was good considering he told me I would fail the class. He seems like a nice person, but is pretty stubborn about agreeing with his TA's grading. You have to buy an online program called WebAssign, I forget how much it costs but you only use it to do about ten problems per week. It's a waste of money if you ask me, but it does boost your grade because you will pretty much get 100% on every assignment. He could be worse, but he could definitely be a lot better. Written homework, 10%; webassign homework, 10%; two midterms, 20% each; one final, 40%.

Not much. But again, you get something slightly off on the tests and your guaranteed no A

You're not gonna learn much here. He teaches what he likes, without much order, and makes going to class very unattractive. The tests are easy, but that makes it extremely hard to get a good grade in the class. Every point you get wrong severely limits your chances of doing well in the class in terms of a letter grade. Homeworks were easy. However, interestingly enough, even after comparing my answers to the textbook solutions, I still got points off. That basically means that Stewart himself wouldn't get the homeworks right. In office hours, I found it quite difficult to get Snyder off the game he was playing on his computer in order to focus on my questions... Really, there's not much more to say about this guy.